To a large extent, the present invention comprises an improvement over the assignee's prior U.S. Pat. No. 3,968,997, dated July 13, 1976, in the names of A. D. Mast and J. P. Lyet, II., the assignee being Sperry Rand Corporation of New Holland, Pa.
This invention is directed particularly to the delivery of feed material, such as forage crops and the like which are harvested in the field in comminuted form and are discharged into forage wagons which haul the material to a material handling apparatus such as those disclosed in the aforementioned prior patent, as well as the following additional prior patents:
______________________________________ 2,405,695 Hitchcock et al August 13, 1946 2,488,626 Hansen November 22, 1949 3,671,077 Hoyt et al June 20, 1972 3,724,908 Burrough et al April 3, 1973 ______________________________________
All of the aforementioned patents employ substantially vertically arranged blowers having spaced sidewalls, one of the walls having an inlet opening to receive the material and the impeller of the blower discharges the material tangentially and usually in a vertical direction to a transition member such as a vertical conduit which extends to the inlet opening of a silo or the like, usually near the top thereof.
Silos of very substantial heights are popular at present and in view of the fact that the crop material must be impelled upwardly through the transition member to the discharge end thereof, it is obvious that the blower, especially the equipment associated therewith which delivers the material to the blower, must operate at maximum efficiency.
Referring to the four (4) patents listed immediately above, it will be noted that one of the vertical walls of the blower in at least the patents to Hitchcock et al, Hansen and Burrough et al have air inlet openings formed therein for the intended purpose of facilitating the force with which the material is discharged vertically from the blower. However, especially when the blower is associated with the material handling apparatus which includes an impeller mounted for movement about a vertical axis adjacent the inlet of the blower and communicating therewith with some type of chute or tunnel, the provision of the air inlet openings in said sidewall of the blower results in the material tending to accumulate in such chute or tunnel between the material handling means and the blower. It is reasoned that the introduction of air to the sidewall of the blower reduces the suction produced by the blower upon the chute or tunnel referred to but, for whatever the actual reason may be, it has been proven in operating devices that such accumulation of the material exists in the region of the chute or tunnel between the handling apparatus and the blower.
The prior patents to Hoyt et al and Burrough et al show horizontal material handling apparatus which employ impellers to discharge material dumped into the receptacle within which the impeller operates, but the upper portion of the receptacle or hopper essentially is entirely open and there is no well defined enclosed passage means, such as a tunnel, between the material handling apparatus and the vertical blower. The assignee's prior U.S. Pat. No. 3,968,997, referred to above, was developed in an effort to effect more efficient transfer of material from the handling apparatus to the vertical blower, and this is accomplished by an enclosed, tangential tunnel, which extends between the sidewall of the hopper of the handling apparatus and the inlet in one sidewall of the vertical blower. In one embodiment of said invention, the major portion of the top of the hopper of assignee's prior patent, is open, while in the second embodiment, it is partially covered and the cover is connected to the upper wall of the tunnel between the handling apparatus and the vertical blower. It has been found that in the operation of handling apparatus of this type, effective movement of the material through the tunnel is not as efficient as is desired under conditions where the entire hopper top opening is covered by incoming material. Therefore, in addition to increasing the capability of the material moving through said tunnel, it is a major objective of the present invention to increase the capacity and speed of the handling apparatus to maximize the passage of material through the tunnel, especially by rendering it airborne by improvements offered by the present invention, details of which are set forth below.